She laughed, relieved. “I’m blushing for you. You do talk such rubbish!”
“There you go with your cheek!”
“It’s only what you just said to me.”
“I said it because you do talk rubbish.”
“And you talk rubbish in saying it.”
“Well, go to those who talk sense, Miss Boldero!” And he pulled out his pipe and matches with a symbolic gesture.
“What an obstinate creature you are, Will!”
“Me obstinate! Why, ain’t it your obstinacy that keeps you here, when I’m ready to do your job?”
“I told you I preferred to do my own jobs.” And with that she went straight up to the black hackneys, and while Will puffed volcanically, she learnedly examined their teeth through tear-misted eyes that saw neither incisors nor age-marks. Then, after carefully prodding their ribs and punching and poking them about, as she had seen purchasers do with bullocks, she swept haughtily towards the auction arena, but afraid of encountering the farmer, she hovered uncertainly on the threshold, feeling like a bundle of straw between two donkeys.
Gradually she realized, and with enhanced resentment, that she was the donkey; that both these men had deceived her in representing the cattle-arena as the selling-place for the horses. By the crowd that began to accumulate round the horses, and to blot out the patient sentinel, as the hour for their sale approached, it became plain that they would be sold where they were tied, and presently the motley crowd, swollen by many of the cattle-auctioneer’s audience, thrilled with the coming of this heavy-jowled worthy, who had not turned a hair of his neatly combed chevelure.